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It looks as if Simon Usherwood was asked the same question I was: How to win at Brexit. My answer would begin by taking a step back and loving the bomb. Winning at Brexit is the wrong question. The goal is winning at life. Winning Brexit is simply the best way to do that, but […]
In the last few days, I’ve ended up in Twitter conversations with two British journalists I greatly respect, only to discover that when they look at the EU they see something completely different than what I see. This is not a question of factual knowledge. They know as much about the EU as I do, […]
In defence of my proposed inter-pillar tie-breaker, I remarked that the Treaties have a tendency of being more integrationist – i.e. more inclined towards strengthening European integration – than the Member States, even though the Member States are supposed to be the Maîtres des Traités, the Masters of the Treaties. So I started to wonder: […]
Now that all major parties have chosen their nominee for Commission President, it is time for the next question: How can we tell who’s won? Let’s assume that the result is the same as the most recent polls: S&D: 209 EPP: 202 GUE-NGL: 67 ALDE: 61 ECR: 45 Greens: 44 EFD: 31 NI: 92 […]
I’m still reading the Cohn-Bendit/Verhofstadt book. So far my diagnosis is that, for a book that I fundamentally agree with, there is a lot there that makes me mad. I will blog more about specific annoyances later, time permitting, but I thought I might start by explaining my problems with the book’s excessive pragmatism. Here’s […]
The story of Tonio Borg’s confirmation as the next Maltese Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection keeps getting stranger. In response to the objections in the S&D group, the Parliament has listed a series of commitments that Mr. Borg is to make in order to be confirmed. They are: The delivery of the legislative proposal […]
Parts of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, as well as their civil society supporters, seem to have taken a rather unusual approach to the question of whether the Conservative Maltese Tonio Borg should be permitted to serve as the new Commissioner for Health and Consumer Affairs. In general, their objection seems to be […]
As part of her ongoing fight over the EU’s agreement with the US over the exchange SWIFT data, MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld is trying to get her hands on the full version of this Europol inspection report. The problem is that it is classified UE SECRET, which predictably led to Ms. In ‘t Veld’s […]
The ECtHR judgement, earlier this month, in SGP v. the Netherlands is an amazing illustration of the glories of legal messiness and Dutch poldermodel lawyering. Unfortunately, though predictably, it ends with a bit of a fizz. The facts, in a nutshell: The Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij is the most orthodoxly Christian party in the Netherlands, and also our […]
I finally got around to reading Jean-Claude Piris’ The Future of Europe, the book that was the basis for his lecture here in Florence in April. While I still don’t agree with his policy recommendation – a new Schengen-like treaty that creates further European Integration among a subset of EU Member States – there’s not […]
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